A Flaw in the Plan
by elfmaiden4legs
Summary: I really didn't like the fact that the 7th book finnished with all the best characters being killed off and so I wrote this in which Lupin, Tonks and Fred survive... but you're going to have to read to find out how! PLEASE READ & REVIEW!
1. Chapter 1

**CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX REVISED**

_**PLEASE REVIEW!**_

Suddenly Lupin stirred beside his semi-conscious wife and all attention was turned for a second time towards the growing number of bodies lining the raised platform in the Great Hall. He came round rather wobbly at first, struggling to his feet as he gazed unsteadily around at the procession which had suddenly began to file into the Great Hall around him.

"What happened?" He demanded rather sharply of Professor McGonagall in his obvious confusion, as he laid eyes upon her first. "Where's Teddy? Where's my son? I want to see my wife and son!"

"Relax Remus." McGonagall tried to reassure him, making her way over as gently she took him by the hand and led him off towards one of the large house benches as Professor Sprout helped Tonks to her feet. "Teddy's fine. Tonks left him back at her mother's where he'd be safe. Do you remember?"

Lupin shook his head vaguely. "I don't think… I'm afraid that I don't remember very much… what happened?"

"Well I'm afraid I'm rather baffled by that myself." McGonagall looked at him with an air of vague expectation. "I was rather hoping you may have been able to tell me that yourself."

Suddenly however there came a further commotion from over where Fred's body had been laid a short distance away from the rest making room for his family to gather around him. The sound of his mother's weeping was immediately ensued by her cries of shock and then joy as the entire Weasley family rushed to see what had happened, Molly revelling in the sudden and unexpected movement which her son had made with a mixture of reverence and delight.

"Well bless my soul!" Professor McGonagall exclaimed, clutching the neck of her gown weakly as tears filled her eyes. "I don't know what miracle as been performed this night but my God it is a miracle indeed."

"Excuse me Professor." Hermione suddenly stepped up to the platform, blushing heavily and looking, Harry thought to himself, more anxious and unsure of herself than he had ever seen her before. "But I'm afraid that I may be able to help explain what has gone on here tonight." She continued.

"You Miss Granger?" Professor McGonagall spluttered. "But… How?"

She was immediately silenced however as her eyes were drawn to what dangled from the end of a long gold chain which Hermione had just drawn from beneath her robes… here the time turner sat glittering neatly within the palm of the young girls hand.

Professor McGonagall looked quite perplexed at the small and glistening object, as though at that moment it was the rarest and most beautiful thing she had ever seen, before turning shakily back to Hermione. "But how in the name of Merlin's beard?" She exclaimed, not getting very far as Ron cut in.

"But Hermione, I thought you said that you had had to give that back to the Ministry at the end of our third year." He asked.

"I did." She explained, and Harry thought that he recognised just an inkling of a smile begin to lift the corners of her so far tearful expression as she spoke. "But you never know when you might need one in a time when the whole world was changing so dramatically from day to day… and not for the better. So the day that we managed to infiltrate the Ministry Harry," She turned to him now as though addressing him directly, "just before Umbridge managed to drag me off to that dreadful hearing, I seized my opportunity. It was just sitting there unobserved on one of the desks before me, and I thought to myself it was now or never, so I just took it and slipped it beneath my robes before Umbridge noticed anything. I mean it wasn't exactly steeling, not from the Dark Lord, it wasn't as it anything at the Ministry was really his to take in the first place… was it?" She added more unsurely after a moment.

"Steeling!" Ron immediately exclaimed as he threw his arms ecstatically around Hermione's neck. "Hermione you're a ruddy genius!"

At this Hermione's face exploded in a broad, proud smile as she looked nervously around for reassurance at the hundreds of faces now surrounding her. Most of whom had now irrupted into a landscape of beaming grins themselves, and those who hadn't contentedly aimed winks and nods of their approval at the brave young woman now standing before them as she found herself facing each of them in turn.

"But Hermione," Harry asked after a moment. "That was months ago. Why haven't you told us about this before?"

Hermione's answer was simple and struck a knife to Harry's soul with the mention of his godfather's name, but even he couldn't deny that she had grasped the situation down to a tee once again. "Because," She explained, "had I told you you would have been all for using it to bring back those who we had all once lost; Sirius, Dumbledore, Ted Tonks." and Harry noticed her glance up apologetically at Nymphadora as she said this. "But you had to remain focused. Dumbledore had left us a mission, and I knew that he hadn't have done so had it not been important. I was still vital that you locate and destroy _all_ the horcruxes not just the few which we had already laid hand to. I knew that the time turner must only be used when we absolutely had to... as an absolute last resort… but I also knew that I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I didn't at least try to correct some of the wrong which has been done tonight."

At this Harry found himself just standing there looking at Hermione for what felt like a very long time. The whole hall seemed to have slipped into silence for the moment, everyone eager to hear what she had had to say, and a momentary anger towards her bubbled in him that she seemed to be of the opinion that everyone else had had the right to survive when Sirius had not. It was however an unexpected and seemingly more urgent question which saved her from the retort Harry was at that very moment composing in his mind.

"What about Snape?" He asked her at last, noticing the gasps and looks of surprise which were now all focused in his direction as he said this, but choosing to ignore them.

"There was nothing I could do." Hermione responded, to Harry's surprise with an element of regret in her voice which made him wonder whether she didn't already know of at least some of the details which had transpired in the pensive after Harry had inserted Snape's last memories, remembering how he had been forced to separate them from the seeping blood of his ex-potions teacher, his last gift to the boy which it now turned out he had been working for the past seventeen years to try to protect… and died in the line of doing so.

"Snape!" Ron suddenly exclaimed. "But he was a traitor, he killed Dumbledore, a slime ball, weasley coward who hated you and made all of our lives hell for the past six years. Why should you care if he's dead? He doesn't deserve your forgiveness Harry!"

"But he wasn't any of those things!" Harry growled, suddenly filled with unexpected remorse for Snape's death. "He was a hero!" And he set about explaining the truth which he now knew about the man he had spent the past six years of his life at Hogwarts growing to resent.

After he finished however there wasn't a single person in the whole of the school who didn't appear moved by Harry's retelling of Snape's final act of bravery and as Professor Slughorn and Hagrid were sent off to retrieve his broken body from where it still lay in the Shrieking Shack at least fifty more people had squeezed themselves into the Great Hall as the castle ghosts floated through the now derelict corridors spreading the news to portraits and straddlers alike that this once hated man had died a hero, trying to save 'he boy who lived'.

When they finally returned a short while later, bearing Snape between them, despite the fact that Hagrid could have managed his slender form alone, everyone was silent as they laid the potions master down beside the fifty more or so other people who had lost their lives during the battle of Hogwarts, and Harry couldn't help but feel glad and slightly proud that Snape's body had at last come to rest in it's rightful place.

At that moment however Harry noticed Madam Pomfrey come bustling in from the entrance hall outside to usher the more seriously wounded and those in need of further medical attention upstairs to the hospital wing, the only section of the castle which seemed to have escaped serious destruction during the battle and noticing Fred, supported by his family, Tonks, and Lupin, looking even more exhausted and shabbier than usual, being assisted out of the Great Hall he, Ron and Hermione began to make their way over.

"Harry! My dear boy!" Madam Pomfrey beamed as she noticed him approach. "This is indeed a wonderful day!" Her normally stern and strained appearance which had always given Harry the impression that she had been severely overworked had melted away now with the joyousness of the moment and he forced a smile in response.

"Umm… Madam Pomfrey, they will be alright won't they?" He ventured to ask once she finally seemed to have finished beaming over him and returned impatiently to the job in hand.

Following his gaze and guessing that he meant the three who were now being supported by various members of the Order of the Phoenix in turn she nodded and smiled pleasantly. "Thanks to Miss Granger here they will." She responded, and Hermione's cheeks immediately flushed with red for the second time that evening. "Had it been the avada kedavra there would have been nothing anybody could do for them, but luck was on our side tonight it would seem. With any luck I'll have them all back on their feet within the next few days." She almost sung the last few lines in her happiness, but with that she shuffled out of the Great Hall and was gone.

Harry wanted to go and join the rest of the group in the hospital wing there and then, but feeling the lump of the Elder Wand now stuffed deep within the pocket of his robes he knew that he had one final task left to perform, and he turned to Ron and Hermione to join him for what he knew would be the very last time, in the light of current circumstances.

"Will you join me?" He asked them, and they both nodded, smiling, happy in the knowledge of the better times which were to come, and with that all three of them left the Great Hall for the Headmaster's office together.

_**Well there you have it! How I feel book 7 should have ended. I wanted to write it in a way which could make it a believable alternative to what really happened in the book... and I hope that I have done so, which is why I come straight in to where Lupin wakes up. I didn't want to create a really long ongoing fan fiction and so the story starts right where my inspiration began, and that was with Lupin as it was my love for his character which inspired me to create this fiction in the first place. I really didn't like the fact that he was killed off in the original!**_

**_I will probably see about making another alternative 'Nineteen Yeats Later' chapter soon with Lupin and Tonks also included with Teddy so keep and eye out for that. In the mean time I really really hope that you have enjoyed what you read and please don't forget to leave me a REVIEW!_**

**_Thank You:D_**


	2. Chapter 2

**Nineteen Years Later**

**Well here it is. I finally wrote Tnks and Lupin into the final chapter of 'The Deathly Hallows'. This is how I think the book should have ended and I have intentially tried to make my style and in parts my wording also similar to JK's to make my writing more believable in the context of the story.**

**DISCLAIMER: I do not own Harry Potter or any of the characters used in this story. This is a fan written fiction only. Thank You.**

**Please REVIEW!!!!**

Platform nine and three quarters was teeming as always as Harry and Ginny stepped through the adjoining wall, linking the Hogwarts Express to Kings Cross Station, after what had felt like a long and nothing short of hectic summer holiday.

They had arranged to meet up with Ron and Hermione, who James had claimed to have caught sight of amongst the bustling crowd in the Kings Cross car park, but had lost sight of them momentarily as indistinct figures now swarmed through the mist ahead of them. It wasn't long before James had followed suit, leaving his younger brother Albus, sister Lily and parents to fight their own way through the growing crowd without him.

Harry wasn't concerned, although couldn't help but smile as he noticed Ginny catch hold of Albus' hand in an attempt to stop him following suit of his brother, as he went back to scaling the platform for Ron and Hermione.

"Where are they?" asked Albus anxiously, taking in the bleary figures of the many young witches and wizards and their parents as they dashed hurriedly past.

"We'll find them, don't worry." Ginny tried to reassure him. Although it wasn't long before Harry had picked out their two familiar figures already loading packing cases and the two rather indignant looking owls into the very last carriage a little further down the platform, their young son Hugo remaining obediently by his father's side.

"I think that's them." He pointed out, and they began to make their way towards them.

As they approached Hermione turned to greet them. "There you are." She smiled. "Rosie's been looking for you everywhere."

"Yeah, what kept you!" Ron grinned, before calling rather all too loudly into the open carriage, prompting Hermione to give him a disapproving look. "Rosie we've found them!"

A young girl, strongly resembling her mother and already changed into her brand new Hogwarts robes immediately appeared at the carriage door, beaming at Albus.

"At last." She huffed. "I was beginning to worry that you were going to mss us. You'd better get your stuff inside Albus, mine's already in there. I've saved us a seat."

"Rosie," Ron scolded her. "where do you get off being so bossy?" But Harry simply smiled as he was instantly reminded all the more of Hermione when she was the same age as her daughter was now. So much had changed over the past nineteen years since they were ay Hogwarts together, but it certainly seemed as though the young Granger family couldn't beat the habit of a lifetime.

"Wotcher Harry." Suddenly a familiar voice from behind him made him turn to see Tonks hailing them from a few feet away. Lupin, with distinctly more grey hair than when Harry had last seen him, and looking quite exhausted and perhaps slightly ill, stood silently beside her, although smiled welcomingly as they approached.

"Heya Harry." He spoke, once the pair of them were close enough to be heard, shaking hands heartily with Ron and gently returning a light embrace from Hermione. "How are you doing?"

"Not bad." Harry nodded. "How about you?"

"We thought about you, during the full moon recently." Hermione added.

The fresh scratches to Lupin's face and hands were actually more prominent up close than either Harry, Ron or Hermione cared to comment, although it was more than obvious to all three that Lupin had clearly been in for a rough time if it recently.

"Oh, I've been worse." He smiled meekly.

Ginny and Tonks were already deeply immersed in their own conversation when James reappeared, having already divested himself of his own trunk, owl and trolley and clearly bursting with news.

"Teddy's back there." He beamed breathlessly, pointing back over his shoulder through the billowing cloud of smoke at the head of the train. "Just seen him! And guess what he's doing? _Snogging Victoire_!"

He gazed expectantly up at the adults as he said this, clearly hoping for some kind of a reaction… especially from his young Godfather's parents, who merely looked quite amused.

"_Our_ Teddy!" He continued after a moment, without response. "Teddy Lupin! Snogging _our_ Victoire! _Our_ cousin! And I asked Teddy what he was doing -"

"You interrupted them?" Asked Ginny, looking wide eyed and really quite embarrassed by this. "You are _so_ like Ron -"

Lupin simply chucked, a warm, deep, throaty sound which for a moment took Harry back to being thirteen years old again, himself a student at Hogwarts. Tonks struggled to look serious, although even she couldn't conceal the amusement which took her at this.

"So that's the business he said he had to attend to." She smiled knowingly. "And here was me thinking that it had something to do with his work at the Ministry… You'll have to have a word with him about that Remus." But Harry could tell that she was only teasing.

"-and he said he'd come to see her off!" James continued, unphased by the interruption. "And then he told me to go away. He's _snogging_ her!"

"Oh, it would be lovely if they got married!" Lily whispered to Rose and her brothers ecstatically. Hugo remained apparently indifferent. "He would really be part of the family then."

"You're already like part of the family to us, you know that." Tonks smiled down at her.

"And I know that my father and Sirius would be only too glad to know that it was so." Harry said, turning to Lupin as he said this, who responded with a weary smile.

"Lets not get too ahead of ourselves though." Remus warned. "I don't think Teddy would be very pleased to know that we have already married him off to the first girl he shows an interest in, and he hasn't even told us about her yet."

"Even so a wedding would be nice." Hermione commented and Ginny and Tonks beamed.

Suddenly the train's horn sounded as it let out a billowing cloud of steam. Harry checked the battered, old watch that had once belonged to Fabian Prewett.

"It's nearly eleven o' clock, you'd better get on board." He advised.

"Go on then. You wouldn't want to be left behind now would you?" Hermione smiled at each of the children in turn, and with a final round of hugs and a last farewell to Tonks and Lupin, Albus, Rose, Lily, Hugo and James jumped aboard the open carriage.

Suddenly another set of figures caught the groups attention from further down the platform however, where three new fugues now stood. Their sharp features in stark contrast to the softness of the surrounding mist.

Draco Malfoy was standing with his wife and son a few carriages down from where they stood. As he noticed the small group he nodded curtly towards Harry, Ron and Hermione before turning away again.

"So that's little Scorpius." Ron commented under his breath as he observed the young boy bearing a remarkable resemblance to his father. "Make sure you beat him in every test Rosie. Thank God you inherited your mother's brains."

"Ron, for heaven's sake," remarked Hermione despairingly. "Don't go turning them against each other before they've even started school!"

"See you at Christmas then." Ginny grinned as she kissed Albus goodbye.

"And don't forget Hagrid's invited you to tea next Friday." Harry added. "Don't be late."

The train began to move off, as the adults walked beside it along the length of the platform, watching the children's faces ablaze with excitement as they waved them goodbye.

Finally the carriage rounded a corner, carrying the five little Potter's and Weasley's away from their parents and Harry couldn't hep but feel a little remorseful to see his two sons and daughter glide steadily away from him.

"They'll be alright." Murmured Ginny a Lupin placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

Harry didn't realise but everybody noticed as she said this that his hand reached absent-mindedly to touch the lightening shaped scar on his forehead.

"I know they will." He responded as he did so.

The scar hadn't pained him for nineteen years now, and Harry knew all was well.

**_end._**


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